The seventies in the eighteenth century produced numerous brilliant men and women whose names still live; besides Jane Austen herself, we have Sir Walter Scott, Hazlitt, Sydney Smith, Lamb, Sir Humphry Davy, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, Hogg, Thomas Moore, and Thomas Campbell, who were all born in this decade, though, as the development of a writer differs enormously in growth, some of them were much later in making their appearance in print than others. Among the better known names of women novelists not already mentioned we have Miss Edgeworth, Jane Austen’s senior by eight years, whose first novel, _Castle Rackrent_, was published anonymously in 1800. That Jane knew and admired her work is obvious from the fact that she sent her a copy of _Emma_ for a present on its publication. Mrs. Inchbald, born in 1753, was at first known as an actress, her _Simple Story_, by which she is best remembered, was published in 1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, whose romances induced Jane Austen to write _Northanger Abbey_ in mockery, was very busy between 1789 and 1797, during which time she published five novels, including her famous _Mysteries of Udolpho_ in 1794. Joanna Baillie published a volume of verse in 1790, and her first volume of plays in 1798; though almost forgotten now, she was taken very seriously in her time, and her play _De Montfort_ was produced at Drury Lane in 1800 by Mrs. Siddons and Kemble. Anna Seward, who was born in 1747, lived to 1809; she, like Hannah More, was far more praised and valued than any of her poor little productions warranted. Sheridan brought out his famous play _The Rivals_ in the year of Jane’s birth; it was at first a dead failure, but, nothing daunted, he cut it about and altered it, and when reproduced two years subsequently it attained success at once. The same year saw _The School for Scandal_, and the following one _The Critic_. In this year also the first volume of Gibbon’s great History appeared. Burns, who had written some of his best work while Jane was still a child, died in 1796, and the brilliant Burke the succeeding year. Just to give some general idea of the wonderful fruitfulness of this epoch it may also be mentioned that Samuel Rogers’ _Pleasures of Memory_ came out in 1792; _Lyrical Ballads_, including Coleridge’s _Ancient Mariner_ and some of Wordsworth’s poems, in 1798; Campbell’s _Pleasures of Hope_ in 1799. Byron was thirteen years younger than Jane, yet his precocity was so great that his first book, _Hours of Idleness_, was produced in 1807. The first two cantos of _Childe Harold_ followed in 1812, but the whole poem was not completed until Jane was in her grave; the _Giaour_, _Corsair_, etc., she must have known as new books a year or two before her death. Southey’s _Thalaba_ came out in the first year of the new century, and Thomas Moore published the first of his _Irish Melodies_ in 1807.